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  21 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  ‘I’ll be their angel investor’: Air Force vice chief wants to crowdsource airmen’s ideas

  By: Kyle Rempfer As the U.S. military turns its attention to the threats posed by near-peer adversaries, Air Force leadership is shifting its focus to great power approaches to combat, like multi-domain operations and expeditionary warfare. A culture of innovation among airmen will be pivotal in preparing for such a conflict, and the effort to foster that independence and creativity is already underway. In the coming weeks, the Air Force will be rolling out a new initiative to crowdsource solutions from airmen around the service. Across all specialty codes, the service is calling on airmen to design apps, develop algorithms and create new approaches to the problems that plague their career fields or help the Air Force carry out its missions. The program — dubbed the Vice Chief's Challenge — will be spearheaded by Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson. “We want to take the ideas our airmen have to see around corners, anticipate what's next and solve these really complex national security challenges,” Wilson told Air Force Times. Those challenges range from fusing open-source social media information into actionable intelligence with new software, to upgrading legacy aircraft with gadgets to help airmen stay in the fight longer. “Navigation apps like Waze change the way we travel across town by giving us an intuitive display that integrates traffic, hazards, and route recommendations in real time. Companies like Uber and Amazon have transformed our view of logistics," according to a copy of the Vice Chief's Challenge provided to Air Force Times. "They are not the only ones leaning forward. I am sure each of you have seen opportunities to enhance [multi-domain operations]. I want to hear your best ideas.” The initiative is designed to deliver capabilities to the Air Force in months, rather than the usual years, Wilson said. And it's going to become routine, always running against the backdrop of the service's other acquisition initiatives. “It's this cultural change and this shift that happens ... and today, I think it's clear in this great power competition, we need this urgently," Wilson said. “I need to remove barriers to innovation." The Vice Chief's Challenge will consist of three phases. First, ideas will be solicited from across the service in a broad announcement. Then, workshops will be set up in which subject matter experts help refine the most promising proposals and draft development plans for the budding ideas. The final phase will involve developing and demonstrating prototypes for the chosen concepts. “We'll start small by gathering ideas from individual airmen, rapidly evolve concepts with national thought leaders, and scale fast by working with industry to build and demonstrate prototypes in the next year,” Wilson said. Each phase will be led by a different organization, but the Air Force Research Lab and the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff will serve as executive agents to ensure smooth transition between phases. The initiative is similar to last year's first-ever Spark Tank innovation proposals. “Each of the [major commands] went out to their different wings and solicited ideas, picked their best ones and came to us," Wilson said. "There were a dozen ideas, of which we picked six of them and presented them at the [Warfighter's Edge] conference.” The idea chosen for development ended up being that of a boom operator on the KC-135 Stratotanker. He proposed a plan to re-engineer the boom operator platform instructor position for the entire KC-135 fleet at a projected cost of $1.5 million. The proposed innovation aims to both reduce back and neck injuries and save the Air Force $132 million each year in this critical aircrew specialty, according to Air Mobility Command. “It was across the fleet, easy to implement, and that's what we're using now,” Wilson said. Other innovative ideas that Wilson has already seen, and clearly wants more of, involve software development that connects sensors, platforms and nodes to share information across the force. “We had an airman and second lieutenant who briefed me on software development they had done that was unbelievable — the capability they were bringing me and the speed at which they were doing it,” Wilson said. The duo took SIPRNet information and found a way to fuse it together using complex computer coding for targeting purposes. The result was a tool dreamed up in-house that directly solved a pressing issue. Much of that is simply owed to the fact that those airmen knew what they needed to do, how to do it and already worked in a position to provide the service. “The CEO of Pivotal [Software Inc.] pulled me aside and said ‘I work with all the Fortune 500 companies across the world, and I would put these two people against any company, anywhere,'” Wilson said. That's the sort of innovation the Vice Chief's Challenge is looking to tap into. Wilson doesn't know yet how many ideas will be taken to completion, but by this time next year, he's hoping that the Vice Chief's Challenge will be handing out some awards. “I can't compensate them like industry can, but I can offer them purpose," he said. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/09/20/ill-be-their-angel-investor-air-force-vice-chief-wants-to-crowdsource-airmens-ideas

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  9 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Aérospatial : l'Onera, une pépite oubliée ?

  L'organisme de recherche sur lequel repose en grande partie la dissuasion nucléaire, la surveillance spatiale ou le renseignement des armées, se débat avec un budget contraint et des injonctions contradictoires. Par Anne Bauer Publié le 9 déc. 2019 à 8h00 L'Office national d'études et de recherches aéronautiques (Onera) est-il négligé ? Après une audition de son président, Bruno Sainjon, le Sénat a appelé le ministère des Armées à doter les finances de ce spécialiste de la recherche aéronautique de moyens à la hauteur des ambitions. Les « appels répétés pour doter enfin l'Onera de moyens au niveau de son excellence scientifique et technologique n'ont toujours pas été entendus par le gouvernement », s'indigne la Commission des affaires étrangères et de la défense. La querelle n'est pas nouvelle mais elle prend un mauvais tour. Dans le monde aéronautique, spatial et de défense, l'Onera (1910 salariés dont 291 doctorants) est jugé comme un outil stratégique. Les pales du nouvel hélicoptère léger des armées (le Guépard d'Airbus) sont issues de sa recherche. La France lui doit aussi son système de surveillance de l'espace (Graves). Quant à la dissuasion nucléaire, elle ne serait pas crédible sans les recherches menées par l'Onera sur les statoréacteurs et désormais les superstatoréacteurs (vitesse supérieure à Mach 6). Dans le renseignement enfin, les armées exploitent les techniques radars de l'Onera pour voir par tous les temps et au-delà de la ligne d'horizon. Budget bloqué Pourtant malgré ce palmarès, la subvention (106 millions d'euros prévus en 2020) versée à l'établissement par le Ministère des Armées, n'a quasiment pas varié depuis 2015. En outre, l'établissement, qui a fêté ses 70 ans, voit ses effectifs et ses salaires plafonner à un niveau inférieur à 2015, ce qui le met en danger pour garder ses chercheurs de haut niveau. Alors que l'enveloppe budgétaire consacrée à la recherche est en nette hausse dans le projet de budget 2020, la mise à l'écart de l'Onera est surprenante. Sa recherche étant duale : militaire et civile, l'Office est mal défendu au sein de la Défense, qui souhaiterait que les industriels (Safran, Thales, Airbus, etc.) mettent davantage au pot. En 2019, l'Onera a décroché 120 millions d'euros de contrats en sus de sa subvention, portant ainsi son budget à 235 millions d'euros. Revoir le contrat d'objectifs « L'Onera est une pépite technologique de niveau mondial mais cela ne pourra durer si nous continuons à le sous-doter alors que nos partenaires et concurrents accélèrent leur effort », avertit Christian Cambon, président de la Commission Affaires étrangères et défense au Sénat. De fait, la multiplication des projets prévus par le ministère des Armées plaide pour une renégociation du contrat d'objectifs de l'Onera, qui remonte à 2016. Avant que le gouvernement ne décide de renforcer sa lutte anti drone , ne crée un commandement militaire de l'espace ou ne décide de réaliser en coopération avec l'Allemagne le système de combat aérien du futur (programme Scaf). C'était aussi avant que l'Agence spatiale européenne ne décide d'aider la réalisation de petits lanceurs, alors que l'Onera a fait voler cet été un démonstrateur de système de lancement aéroporté de petits satellites, le système Ataïr. Le projet est gelé alors qu'il est essentiel pour l'avenir. Enfin, l'Onera attend avec impatience de savoir quel rôle jouer pour le Scaf, sachant que son homologue, le DLR, a déjà contractualisé avec l'armée allemande ses recherches sur le sujet. https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-defense/aerospatial-lonera-une-pepite-oubliee-1154727

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  9 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Boeing’s KC-46 tanker now has a pathway for autonomous aerial refueling

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Last week's deal between Boeing and the U.S. Air Force on a fix for the KC-46 could pave the way for the tanker to refuel other aircraft without a person needed to manually control the process, a top service official said Thursday. On April 2, Boeing agreed to fix the KC-46's troubled Remote Vision System by creating an overhauled RVS 2.0 with new hardware and software. Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper told reporters those changes would include the addition of 4K high-definition cameras that will display imagery in color as well as modern processors and LiDAR (light detecting and ranging) sensors that will help improve depth perception. “A proper RVS like that is right on the doorstep to autonomy,” Roper said. “All you have to do is take that data that tells the world inside the jet the reality of geometries between the airplane and the boom outside the jet. Once you have that, you simply need to translate it into algorithms that allow the tanker to tank itself.” The KC-46's Remote Vision System has been a thorn in the side of the aircraft program since 2017, when issues with the system were first discovered. The RVS is basically a suite of cameras, sensors and software that is supposed to allow boom operators sitting inside the aircraft to safety steer the boom into the aircraft needing fuel. But in certain conditions, the system produces distorted imagery that increases the risk of the boom hitting another aircraft. The new LIDAR system will be key to fixing that problem, said Roper, who likened it to a backup camera on a car that also provides cues to a driver for parallel parking or assessing whether a vehicle is aligned flush to a curb. “We'll have something very similar to that for the boom operators, so telling them are they left, right and how close are they getting to the airplane,” he said. “[It's] something very intuitive and easy to work with, and I think that will help significantly with them understanding their distance [from the other aircraft] because LIDAR is extremely accurate.” Because Boeing is locked into a firm fixed-price contract for the development of the KC-46, it will have to pay for the upgrade to RVS 2.0 out of its own pocket, as the Air Force maintains that the current system does not meet requirements. But the service is so confident in the prospect of using the RVS 2.0 as a stepping stone to an autonomous tanker that it included an option in last week's agreement to fund the development of technologies that enable autonomous or semiautonomous refueling. “We have added an engineering change proposal into the deal with a not-to-exceed threshold of $55 million, so that when RVS 2.0 is done, we can then take the next step beyond 2.0 to develop those autonomy algorithms and install them if we think we can certify them for safe use,” Roper said. “We took that step because, one, we're excited about being on the doorsteps of autonomy and, [two], we wanted to send a clear signal in the deal that this is our tanker for the future,” he said. If the Air Force decides to move forward with those design changes, more will need to be done to hammer out the contractual details, said Jamie Burgess, Boeing's KC-46 program manager. “There was no commitment one way or another on who pays for what. But there's definitely a strong partnership between Boeing and the Air Force as far as developing this technology,” he said. Autonomous refueling capability has been of increasing interest to the Air Force over the past few years, as sensing and artificial intelligence technologies grow by leaps and bounds. Boeing previously signaled it could include such technology as part of a menu of potential upgrade options for the KC-46, as reported by FlightGlobal in 2018. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/04/08/boeings-kc-46-tanker-now-has-a-pathway-for-autonomous-aerial-refueling